Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/348

 out, are placed on a mat and rolled up into the required shape. This is done by the women and children, who also manage the planting, weeding, and gathering of the tobacco. The process of tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be done only by men. The cords used for this purpose are of very great strength. They are made of the inner bark of a peculiar light-wooded and slender tree, called Uaissíma, which yields, when beaten out, a great quantity of most beautiful silky fibre, many feet in length. I think this might be turned to some use by English manufacturers, if they could obtain it in large quantity. The tree is abundant on light soils on the southern side of the Lower Amazons, and grows very rapidly. When the rolls are sufficiently well pressed they are bound round with narrow thongs of remarkable toughness, cut from the bark of the climbing Jacitára palm tree (Desmoncus macracanthus), and are then ready for sale or use.

A narrow channel runs close by this house, which communicates at a distance of six hours' journey (about eighteen miles) with the Urubú, a large and almost unknown river, flowing through the interior of Guiana. Our host told me the Urubú presented an expanse of clear dark water, in some places a league in width, and was surrounded by an undulating country, partly forest and partly campo. Its banks are fringed with white sandy beaches, and peopled only by a few families of Múra savages. The family now in his employ, and who were living gipsy fashion, the only way they can be induced to live, under a wretched shed on his grounds,